Retiring to the Good Life

Stephen Gaskin on "Rocinante," interviewed by Betty Didcoct

I N THE 60'S AND EARLY 70'S, Stephen Gaskin was a familiar name in the alternative culture scene. After drawing thousands of people in the Bay area to his Monday Night Class in San Francisco, Stephen and a bus caravan of followers took off across the country, landing in Tennessee "to start a new culture." The result was The Farm--a commune that at its peak had 1500 members. The Farm organized many projects which benefitted others; for example they helped re-popularize natural childbirth and midwifery in the United States, and established Plenty, an international nonprofit charitable organization. With a current population of about 250, the Farm is now a small village, with roads, water systems, housing, schools, health care facilities, and more than 70 small businesses, nonprofits, partnerships, and projects.

Betty Didcoct, administrator for the Fellowship for Intentional Community, talks with Stephen Gaskin about his latest project, Rocinante (ro-see-NON-tay), a combination retirement community and midwifery center. While this project is in its infancy, with Stephen's history of manifesting his dreams, we could expect that Rocinante will someday be a familiar name as well. --Deborah Altus.

Betty Didcoct: Where did your vision of Rocinante come from? Why do you want to do this project?

Stephen Gaskin: It actually started back when I began everything in the 60s. I knew that people could make a difference, but they really had to try. When we first came out of the Haight-Ashbury district in San Francisco, collectivity was the most powerful thing we had ever seen. The Farm started out as a collective, continued on that path, and then at one point became less collective. When people hit their peak earning years, they didn't like it anymore. But as folks get 'over the hill' or 'on the downward slope', collectivity starts to look pretty good again.

Since The Farm quit being collective and Plenty had become such a regulated project, once it got treaties with governments, I decided I needed a new project. I thought long about what was needed. I didn't really get to finish the experiment with collectivity, and when I had read an article which said that 25% of older people will not be covered with public or private health insurance by the year 2000, the idea was born.

I figured there have to be a lot of 'liberal geezers' like me who are not going to suddenly blossom out in polyester and Lawrence Welk when they get old. Some of them are still going to want blue jeans and the Grateful Dead. So I set up another 501(c)3) and named it Rocinante.

Betty:Why did you choose "Rocinante"?

Stephen: Rocinante is the name of Don Quixote's ancient horse in Cervantes' famous novel. It is medieval Spanish for "supernag." Don Quixote was an incurable idealist who wanted to do good deeds, rescue all the maidens, and save everyone from the bad magicians. He borrowed his neighbor's draft horse for a charger, used his barber's basin for a helmet, and went forth to be a knight and fight battles against evil. I just turned 60 and I am going to spend the next 20 to 30 years being Don Quixote!

Betty: What's happened so far on the project?

Stephen: My first angel gave me $10,000. I used $5,000 as a downpayment on 100 acres of nice land adjoining The Farm and put the other $5,000 in the bank to make land payments for the first year to give it time to get rolling. I have been rolling for three years now and I've brought in 16,000 volts--enough to power a couple dozen houses, 25 pairs of phone lines, and drilled a well that produces 45 gallons per minute of beautiful drinking water.

We've got three houses almost done and one of them is free right now because it belonged to my first partner, Dr. Dawn Hendrickson, who recently died. We will probably use it as a birthing cabin for the midwife side of the project. That was my other idea--to combine a retirement community with the midwifery center. With more than 20 years of experience now in community midwifery and rural primary healthcare, I wanted to create a project that will provide a special place for people to make these passages. I see people being born, people giving birth, people dying, and people giving hospice care: a birth and death center--"from the womb to the tomb."

Betty: How can people get involved?

Stephen: You can endow a cabin that will be used as a birthing cabin, maintained by the midwife program, until you are ready to retire to it. I believe you can put money down like you do for an IRA and make payments on your cabin. Then when you die, the cabin reverts to Rocinante but your other money is your own. What you leave for kids and all is your own business.

Some folks endow a birthing cabin just to help out the midwife program. Right now I have someone with a cabin that is mostly done and he wants to leave. Rocinante does not have the money to purchase the cabin, but we can serve as the broker between this man and a new resident. They can make their own deal. Down the line, we will be able to have cabins available for those who can't afford to build their own. At this point, people have to build their cabins however they want, as long as it is done in a low-cost way, is energy efficient, and tastefully designed.

Betty: Who determines that?

Stephen: I will, in the beginning, then as we get more residents, they can determine how to keep the quality up so it becomes a pretty, ecological little village.

Betty: What would life be like for someone who retires at Rocinante?

Stephen: Right now we are at the very beginning, in the pioneering stage, but my idea is that we will have conferences and schools for the midwives and on various other subjects. The older folks could have first dibs for staffing the conferences. It would be like having a visiting university. The folks who live here would get to have educational classes brought to them.

I thought that older people may not have the muscle or the energy to do all the work of the collective by themselves. Rocinante's role will be to maintain the land and provide administration for the collective. We will ask $100 per month for a person and $150 for a couple so we have money for public works, infrastructure, and administration.

Once we have 30 to 35 cabins or so, I would assume that we would have generated some sort of residents' committee which would have input on the new additions to the community and how much in dues are needed to fix the roads and keep the infrastructure together.

Betty: What sort of relationship do you see between The Farm community and Rocinante?

Stephen: Of course there will be social interaction, because The Farm is the closest thing where fun things are happening. For example, Albert Bates has the Ecovillage project that networks with other ecovillage projects all over the world. People might get involved in our Harvest Festival, our Ragweed Day Reunion, and various conferences we are already having. And, of course, they would make friends with folks at The Farm because it is right here and handy!

But Rocinante is separate from what The Farm is doing. The Farm has already built its own retirement system. Rocinante would be serving new people.

Betty: What kind of response have you had so far?

Stephen: It's been good. I'm just starting to look for foundation grants. In our grant research, we get feedback that Rocinante is a very strong project because of combining the midwifery program with the old folks. The older folks are so happy to be with the babies.

Before we get too much funding, I want to have the project up and running so that if we find a big funder we would be established and that funder couldn't come in and change the project. I talked with one guy who was an executive at a major company and he said that it is untidy to have people come in and pick out their own places. He thought we should cut up the land into plots and define what people choose. His thoughts clarified my mind quite a bit because I think that the pioneers who come in early should   get to pick nice spots. We don't want to get super formal because that is what we are trying to get away from--the idea that you have a room along a hall with a number on it and a nurse in a white suit.

Betty: Have you had a response yet from people who want to build cabins for their retirement?

Stephen: A little bit. I have been waiting until we got more together. I may just put an ad in some magazine, saying we are at the ground floor and see what kind of response there is. Mostly I have been dealing with folks who already know me. I find a good response whenever I give talks or do radio interviews. When I was recently on a program in New York, we got a strong response and one person gave me $2,000. I don't even know if he wants to live at Rocinante or not.

Betty: If you had whatever you could wish for, what would you like the most to help with this project?

Stephen: I would wish for about $100,000 so I could polish my infrastructure. I want to put in asphalt hiking paths around most of the property so people can run wheelchairs over them or walk easily. Then I want to put in a couple of facilities for the conference and school.

First we need a meeting hall. I have been thinking about a simple kind of barn--a pyramid-shaped barn with a sound stage out to one side, up a meadow that would have room for 2,000 to 3,000 for an outdoor event. Then I would like to do a building for administration with showers and more so people coming to conferences could camp around it. Those are the things that would put us in business.

You know, I've always thought that being in this country is like living in the ocean, where corporations are like big sharks that are pretty strong and protected. Individuals are just swimming in the soup beside all this big stuff. If you join together with other people, you can build yourself a "collective whale" that is big and safe--so it is not just a single person fighting alone. Rocinante can be that vehicle.

As an aging communitarian, Betty Didcoct has a special interest in multigenerational communities, and in exploring ways that zoning laws can be changed so that intentional communities are welcomed as viable social options (rather than falsely perceived as "cults".) She has been administrator of the Fellowship for Intentional Community since 1993, and is now director of its Outreach and Program Development.